George Zimmerman returned to court Saturday morning for the third day in a hearing that will determine whether voice-recognition experts should be allowed at his murder case.

Florida Circuit judge Debra Nelson has been listening to testimony on the issue since Thursday, and the defense still has several more witnesses to call.

The hearing is being held days before jury selection starts in Zimmerman's second-degree murder trial for fatally shooting 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in February 2012.

Zimmerman is pleading not guilty, claiming self-defense.

A British audio expert testified for the defense Saturday that it would be extremely difficult to analyze voices by comparing screaming to a normal voice.

"I've never come across a case in my 13 years where anybody's tried to compare screaming to a normal voice," said audio expert John Peter French.

French added that the voice of a person screaming is "completely different" than their normal speaking voice. "There can't be any meaningful findings," French said.

Voice experts were hired by lawyers and news organizations to analyze 911 calls made during the confrontation in which screams can be heard.

The screams are crucial pieces of evidence since they could determine who the aggressor was in the confrontation. Martin's family contends it was the teen screaming, while Zimmerman's father has said it was his son.

Audio experts have reached mixed conclusions, and defense attorneys are arguing against allowing experts who say they can match the screaming to either voice.

State expert Alan R. Reich testified Friday that it was likely Trayvon screaming in the background of the call, according to the Orlando Sentinel. "The words that were at a scream level were almost all [Trayvon]," Reich said. 

However, he added that his results should not be treated as conclusive, the Orlando Sentinal reports.

In deciding whether to admit the voice-recognition technology, Nelson must determine whether it is too novel or whether it has been accepted by a community of experts.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Authorities plan to conduct an autopsy on a body believed to be that of a 15-year-old Iowa girl who has been missing since she and another girl were abducted more than two weeks ago.

Authorities say they're confident that the body a fisherman found Friday night in the Des Moines River near Boone is Kathlynn Shepard's. They scheduled the autopsy for Saturday.

Investigators say clothes on the body matched what Kathlynn was wearing when she and a 12-year-old girl were abducted in Dayton, a town about 20 miles north of Boone. They also found zip ties that matched those used to restrain the younger girl, who managed to escape and call 911.

Authorities believe registered sex offender Michael Klunder abducted the girls and committed suicide after the younger girl's escape.

A dying Vietnam veteran who doctors say has only days to live was granted his last wish by a stranger who was able to reunite him with his beloved lost dog, Mr. Cutie.

John Simpson, the veteran, was moved to hospice and could not bring Mr. Cutie. Last Sunday, Mr. Cutie escaped his new owner's home by digging a hole under a backyard fence. It was one day after he visited Simpson in the hospice.

"Saturday was the first time I took the dog here to hospice. The next day, he got out," Ann Marie Gemmel, the neighbor who has been checking on the dog, told MyFoxTampaBay.com. "I really think he was looking for John," she said.

Simpson was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2012. He described Mr. Cutie as his "spark of life," and said the dog is what he was living for.

"When you're growing up you're asked, 'If you could have one wish, what would you wish for?' Back in those days, I used to say, 'As many wishes as I could wish for.' Now my only wish would be for my dog to come home,'" he told MyFoxTampaBay.com.

His wish was granted Friday when Missy Figueroa connected Mr. Cutie with Simpson by posting pictures of the dog she had found on FidoFinder. The dog had been found running around the area near where he escaped with a red collar but had no identification tags. 

It wasn't confirmed that the dog found was Mr. Cutie until the moment of the reunion. 

"Seeing this person that I don't even know, you know, so excited to see his dog, it just makes me happy that I actually got to be here for that and just make him happy," Figueroa told MyFoxTampaBay.com.

Simpson said that he had been praying to St. Jude everyday for the return of his dog.

"I'm about to cry," he said during the reunion.

Click for more from MyFoxTampaBay.com.

A Texas high school silenced its Valedictorian's microphone during his speech when he diverted from his pre-approved remarks and instead spoke about the Constitution. 

Joshua High School graduate Remington Reimer, who was accepted into the Naval Academy, had his microphone silenced during his speech right after he told fellow graduates that school officials apparently threatened him with the move the day before, MyFoxDFW.com reported.

Colin Radford, a fellow graduate told MyFoxDFW.com that Reimer was "talking about getting constitutional rights taken away from him, and then he said "just yesterday they threatened to turn my microphone off," and then his microphone went off."

"Student speakers were told that if their speeches deviated from the prior-reviewed material, the microphone would be turned off, regardless of content," Joshua Independent School District said in a statement.

"When one student's speech deviated from the prior-reviewed speech, the microphone was turned off, pursuant to District policy and procedure," the statement said.

The ceremony reportedly opened and closed with a prayer, leading another graduate to believe Reimer's speech mentioning God and Jesus had nothing to do with the microphone being silenced.

Click for more from MyFoxDFW.com. 

A Florida judge is listening to a third day of testimony that will help her decide if voice-recognition experts should be allowed at George Zimmerman's trial.

Testimony was continuing Saturday, only two days before jury selection starts in Zimmerman's second-degree murder trial for fatally shooting 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in February 2012.

Zimmerman is pleading not guilty, claiming self-defense.

Voice experts were hired by lawyers and news organizations to analyze 911 calls made during the confrontation in which screams can be heard.

The screams are crucial pieces of evidence since they could determine who the aggressor was in the confrontation. Martin's family contends it was the teen screaming, while Zimmerman's father has said it was his son.

Audio experts have reached mixed conclusions.

Authorities in northern Arizona say a 4-year-old boy accidentally shot and killed his father at a Prescott Valley home.

Prescott Valley police say the shooting occurred just after noon Friday.

The 35-year-old man, identified as Justin Stanfield Thomas, and his young son were visiting from Phoenix and were at a friend's house.

Police say the boy somehow found a gun in the home's living room and accidentally fired it and a bullet hit his father, who was rushed to a hospital where he died. 

The friend was reportedly Thomas' former roommate and it may have been a surprise visit to the home, MyFoxPhoenix.com reported. 

The boy was taken to a police substation to undergo interviews, and did not appear to realize what he did, MyFoxPhoenix.com reported. The boy is now with his mother. 

"At this point there is no indication of any foul play," Prescott Valley Police spokesperson Brandon Bonney told MyFoxPhoenix.com. 

Thomas was an Iraq War veteran with the Army Special Forces and leaves behind two children, the news station reported. 

Click for more from MyFoxPhoenix.com.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The government's broad programs to collect U.S. phone records and Internet traffic helped disrupt a 2009 plot to bomb the New York City subways, a senior U.S. intelligence official said.

But the assertion raises as many questions as it answers because court testimony indicated the subway plot investigation began with an email.

Over the past days, The Guardian newspaper and The Washington Post have revealed classified documents showing how the National Security Agency sweeps up phone records and Internet data in its hunt for terrorists. Those programs have come under criticism from civil libertarians and some in Congress who say they were too broad and collected too much about innocent Americans.

In one of those programs, the NSA's collected daily records of millions of phone calls made and received by U.S. citizens not suspected of any wrongdoing.

On Thursday, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., who leads the House Intelligence Committee, credited that effort with thwarting a terrorism plot. But he did not elaborate.

The senior U.S. intelligence official who asserted Friday that the phone records program together with other technical intercepts thwarted the subway plot would not provide other details. The official was not authorized to discuss the plot publicly and requested anonymity.

Afghan-American Najibullah Zazi pleaded guilty in the 2009 plot, saying he had been recruited by al-Qaida in Pakistan.

The break in that case came, according to court documents and testimony, when Zazi emailed a Yahoo address seeking help with his bomb recipe.

At that time, British intelligence officials knew the Yahoo address was associated with an al-Qaida leader in Pakistan. That's because, according to British government documents released in 2010, officials had discovered it on the computer of a terror suspect there months earlier.

Because the NSA and British intelligence work so closely together and so little is known about how the NSA monitors email traffic, it's possible that both agencies were monitoring the Yahoo address at the time Zazi sent the critical email in 2009.

What's unclear, though, is how the phone program aided the investigation, which utilized court-authorized wiretaps of Zazi and his friends.

Based on what's known about the phone-records program, the NSA might have had an archive of all the phone calls Zazi had made, which might have helped authorities look for possible co-conspirators.

Because the phone program remains classified, however, it's impossible to say with certainty how the program benefited the investigation.

___

Follow Dozier on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kimberlydozier

Richard Ramirez, the demonic serial killer known as the Night Stalker who left satanic signs at murder scenes and mutilated victims' bodies during a reign of terror in the 1980s, died early Friday in a hospital, a prison official said.

Ramirez, 53, had been taken from San Quentin's death row to a hospital where authorities said he died of liver failure. Prison officials said they could not release further details on the cause of death, citing federal patient privacy laws.

Ramirez had been housed on death row for decades and was awaiting execution, even though it has been years since anyone has been put to death in California.

At his first court appearance, Ramirez raised a hand with a pentagram drawn on it and yelled, "Hail, Satan."

His marathon trial, which ended in 1989, was a horror show in which jurors heard about one dead victim's eyes being gouged out and another's head being nearly severed. Courtroom observers wept when survivors of some of the attacks testified.

Ramirez was convicted of 13 murders that terrorized Southern California in 1984 and 1985 as well as charges of rape, sodomy, oral copulation, burglary and attempted murder.

The killing spree reached its peak in the hot summer of 1985, as the nocturnal killer entered homes through unlocked windows and doors and killed men and women with gunshot blasts to the head or knives to the throat, sexually assaulted female victims, and burglarized the residences.

He was dubbed the Night Stalker by the press while residents were warned to lock their doors and windows at night.

Some of the crimes were grisly beyond imagining: A man was murdered in his bed and his wife was raped beside the dead body. The killer beat a small child and attempted to sodomize him.

There were also signs of devil worship — a pentagram drawn on the wall at one murder scene and survivors' accounts of being ordered to "swear to Satan " by the killer.

Ramirez was finally chased down and beaten in 1985 by residents of a blue-collar East Los Angeles neighborhood as he attempted a carjacking. They recognized him after his picture appeared that day in the news media.

The trial of Ramirez took a year, but the entire case — bogged down in pretrial motions and appeals — lasted four years, making it one of the longest criminal cases in U.S. history.

Because of the notoriety, more than 1,600 prospective jurors were called.

The trial was almost aborted in its final stages when a woman juror was murdered during deliberations. Jurors were 13 days into talks when the juror failed to appear one morning. She was found beaten and shot to death at the home she shared with her boyfriend. The next day, the man committed suicide and left a note saying he killed her in an argument.

Jurors wept when they learned of the tragedy, and Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Tynan was faced with one of his most trying legal challenges. Lawyers said there were no legal precedents for the situation.

Defense attorneys argued the jurors were too distraught to resume their talks and noted the murder was similar to the gruesome attacks attributed to the Night Stalker.

Tynan decided to move forward. "We must get on with the task life has given us," he told jurors, ordering them to begin deliberations with an alternate juror.

Jurors later said the death of the juror did not influence their decision.

Tynan said Friday, "The Richard Ramirez case was the most difficult trial I ever handled. It was an experience I will never forget, and I'm glad the ordeal is over."

After the conviction, Ramirez flashed a two-fingered "devil sign" to photographers and muttered a single word: "Evil."

On his way to a jail bus, he sneered in reaction to the verdict, muttering: "Big deal. Death always went with the territory. See you in Disneyland."

The black-clad killer, unrepentant to the end, made his comment in an underground garage after the jury recommended the death penalty for his gruesome crimes.

Inexplicably, Ramirez, a native of El Paso, Texas, had a following of young women admirers who came to the courtroom regularly and sent him love notes.

Some visited him in prison, and in 1996 Ramirez was married to 41-year-old freelance magazine editor Doreen Lioy in a visiting room at San Quentin prison.

Relatives called Lioy a recluse who lived in a fantasy world.

Her whereabouts could not be determined on Friday. She was not listed as Ramirez's next of kin, prison spokesman Samuel Robinson said in an email.

"His blood relatives are listed as the next of kin," Robinson said.

In 2006, the California Supreme Court upheld Ramirez's convictions and death sentence. The U.S. Supreme Court refused in 2007 to review the convictions and sentence. Ramirez still had appeals pending when he died.

His lawyers claimed the case should have been moved out of Los Angeles and said Ramirez was incompetent to stand trial.

Two years after his arrest, San Francisco police said DNA linked Ramirez to the April 10, 1984, killing of 9-year-old Mei Leung. She was killed in the basement of a residential hotel in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood where she lived with her family.

Ramirez had been staying at nearby hotels.

Ramirez previously was tied to killings in Northern California. He was charged in the shooting deaths of Peter Pan, 66, and his wife, Barbara, in 1985 just before his arrest in Los Angeles, but he was never tried in that case.

___

Thompson reported from Sacramento.

Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch covered the trial of Richard Ramirez.

.

A man with a semi-automatic rifle killed at least four people and wounded several others Friday as he carried out a deadly rampage across several blocks of a normally idyllic beachfront city before police shot him dead in the Santa Monica College Library.

Police said earlier that seven people were killed, including the gunman.

The violence began when the gunman, dressed in all black and wearing what appeared to be a ballistic jacket, opened fire on a house where the bodies of the gunman's father and brother were found, authorities said.

As the house burst into flames, the man wounded a woman in a car before moving toward the campus, spraying bullets as he went. Police said he opened fire on a city bus, a police car and other vehicles, as well as bystanders and pedestrians.

He killed three people on the street before shooting at an SUV leaving a campus parking lot. That vehicle's driver was killed and two passengers were wounded as the car crashed through a block wall.

From there, the gunman entered the campus, shooting a woman as he made his way toward the college's library, where students were studying for final exams.

"It appears that those who were encountered on the street were random victims," Santa Monica Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks said.

"We saw a woman get shot in the head," said administrative assistant Trena Johnson, who looked out the window of the dean's office, where she works, when she heard gunfire. "I haven't been able to stop shaking," she said.

Inside the library, students reported hearing gunfire and screams.

"I was totally scared to death and I can't believe it happened so fast," said Vincent Zhang, a 20-year-old economics major who said he heard a woman pleading, "No, no. Please, no."

The gunman continued to shoot at people in the library, Seabrooks said, but apparently didn't hit anybody there as dozens ran for the exits.

"The officers came in and directly engaged the suspect and he was shot and killed on the scene," she said.

Just 3 miles away, President Barack Obama was attending a fundraising luncheon. Secret Service spokesman Max Milien said the agency was aware of the shooting, which began just before noon, but it had no impact on the president's event.

The president was scheduled to take Marine One to the airport, but traveled by motorcade to avoid any impact on the ongoing local response to the shooting.

After the gunman was killed, police wearing helmets and armed with shotguns and rifles searched the campus for a second shooter. A man dressed entirely in black, the words "Life is a Gamble" on the back of his sweatshirt, was seen being led away in handcuffs.

Sgt. Richard Lewis, a Santa Monica police spokesman, said at a news conference Friday night that investigators had released a man who had been detained and questioned as a "person of interest."

The identities of the man detained and those who were killed were not immediately released.

Two officials briefed on the investigation told The Associated Press the two victims in the burned house were the gunman's father and brother.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the case.

Two women were admitted to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, said Dr. Marshall Morgan, the chief of emergency medicine. One was listed in critical condition after undergoing surgery. The other arrived in serious condition but was upgraded to fair condition Friday night.

Three other women went to UCLA Medical Center Santa Monica with relatively minor injuries, Morgan said. One had shrapnel-type injuries and the two others had injuries not related to gunfire, he said. All were treated and released.

Jerry Cunningham Rathner, who lives near the house that caught fire, said she heard gunshots and came out onto her porch to see a man shooting at the residence. Soon, the building erupted in flames and was billowing smoke.

The gunman, dressed in black and wearing an ammunition belt, pointed a rifle at a woman in a car and told her to pull over, Cunningham Rathner said. He then signaled to a second car, also driven by a woman, to slow down and began firing into the vehicle.

"He fired three to four shots into the car -- boom, boom, boom, right at her," said Cunningham Rathner, who went to the woman's aid and saw she was wounded in the shoulder.

She said the gunman then abducted the woman in the first car and drove away.

From there, the chaos shifted to Santa Monica College, located among homes and strip malls more than a mile inland from the city's famous Santa Monica Pier, Third Street Promenade and its expansive, sandy beaches.

The two-year college, spread out across 38 acres, has about 34,000 students.

Jimes Gillespie, 20, told The Associated Press he was in the library studying when he heard gunfire, and he and dozens of other students began fleeing the three-story building.

"As I was running down the stairs I saw one of the gunmen," said Gillespie, who described the shooter as a white man in his 20s, wearing cornrows in his hair and black overalls.

As he ran across campus, he said he saw a car in front of the English building that was riddled with bullet holes, had shattered windows and a baby's car seat in the back.

Student Noke Taumalolo told Fox News that he saw a female worker sorting recycling cans lying bloody on the ground with the gunman standing over her.  According to the student, the gunman was wearing black tactical gear including a vest, SWAT-like fatigues and a riot helmet.

In a staff parking lot, college employee Joe Orcutt said he saw the gunman standing calmly with his weapon, looking as though he was trying to determine which people to shoot at.

"I turn around and that's when he's just standing there, like he's modeling for some ammo magazine," Orcutt said. "He was very calm just standing there, panning around, seeing who he could shoot, one bullet at a time, like target practice.

Fox News' Dominic Di-Natale, Adam Housley,  and The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Click for more from MyFoxLA.com.

A 64-year-old Fairbanks man was mauled to death by a bear at a remote lake in Alaska's interior, authorities said Friday.

The man and a family member were at a cabin at George Lake, about 110 miles southeast of Fairbanks, when the attack occurred Thursday evening.

The family member sought shelter inside the cabin and called authorities, Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters said.

A troopers helicopter dispatched from Fairbanks was unable to land in the terrain, but a Pavehawk helicopter from Eielson Air Force Base in Fairbanks was able to drop personnel at the site. Alaska Wildlife Troopers also responded by boat, aided by Good Samaritans.

Responders found the man's body outside the cabin, and the traumatized family member inside. The victim was identified as Robert Weaver, Peters said.

"Troopers did search the area when they first got there, but no bear was located," Peters said.

That soon changed, however, as responders investigating the death encountered a black bear.

"The black bear was stalking up on the trooper and the civilian who was assisting him, when they noticed it and killed it," Peters said.

It wasn't immediately known if this was the bear involved in the mauling.

The necropsy on the bear was completed Friday afternoon in Fairbanks, said Cathie Harms, a biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Measurements were taken for comparative purposes once the autopsy on Weaver's body is completed in Anchorage.

"We'll know more, but we may or may not know that this bear was involved in the attack," she said.

The bear necropsied was an adult male. They don't yet have an exact age, but assume it was an older bear because of the great deal of wear on its molars, she said.

It had normal levels of fat, meaning it was not in a condition of starvation, and did not have any apparent disease or infirmity, she said.

Harms stressed that it's not yet known if this was the bear involved in the attack, or if it was a black bear attack, at all.

She said an attack by a bear is not common, even less so for black bears. Fatalities by black bears are even more rare. In fact, Harms said she could only find records for four deaths by a black bear in Alaska for the last 61 years.

The family member at the cabin with Weaver was his next of kin, Peters said. That person, who wasn't identified, apparently was uninjured but traumatized.

"We haven't done a follow-up interview yet with the person," Peters said. "They are understandably very, very upset by what happened."

"Our heart goes out to the family," Harms said. "It's a very sad situation and they have our sympathies."

It wasn't immediately known when authorities might be able to interview the other family member to see if they can get more details about what happened.

Peters said the important thing to take away from this is attack is to be always prepared and alert.

"Any time that you are out in Alaska recreating, whether it's in your backyard or out camping in rural Alaska, there's always a risk of coming into contact with wildlife," she said.

"It doesn't matter if it's a black bear or a brown bear or a polar bear, it doesn't matter the size, they are wild animals, and they are dangerous," Peters said.

She said people should familiarize themselves with safety tips on the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's "Living with Bears" website: http://is.gd/2S3ZWu .

"Alaskans live in bear habitat and if people pay attention to about five basic rules, they can lessen their chance of an interaction or a serious interaction with bears," Harms said.

Those include not surprising, approaching or feeding a bear, not camping on a trail and staying away from a bear's food cache.

A pregnant Texas actress who first told the FBI that her husband sent ricin-tainted letters to President Barack Obama and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, then allegedly said she sent them because her husband "made her" do it, was charged Friday with threatening the president.

Shannon Guess Richardson, 35, appeared in a Texarkana courtroom after being charged with mailing a threatening communication to the president. The federal charge carries up to 10 years in prison, U.S. attorney's office spokeswoman Davilyn Walston said.

Richardson, a mother of five who has played bit roles on television and in movies, was arrested earlier Friday for allegedly mailing the ricin-laced letters last month to the White House, Bloomberg and the mayor's Washington gun-control group. The letters -- which authorities determined were mailed from Richardson's hometown of New Boston or nearby Texarkana and postmarked in Shreveport, La. -- threatened violence against gun-control advocates, authorities said.

Her court-appointed attorney didn't immediately return a message seeking comment.

According to an FBI affidavit, Richardson contacted authorities on May 30 to implicate her estranged husband, Nathaniel Richardson. She later failed a polygraph test, and investigators looking into her story found numerous inconsistencies, the document said.

Among the inconsistencies: Nathaniel Richardson would have been at work at a time when Internet searches tied to the letters were made on the couple's laptop and at the time they were postmarked.

During an interview with authorities Thursday, Shannon Richardson admitted mailing the letters knowing they contained ricin, but she said her husband had typed them and made her print and send them, the affidavit said.

No charges have been filed against Nathaniel Richardson. His attorney, John Delk, told The Associated Press Friday that his client was pleased with his wife's arrest and was working with authorities to prove his innocence.

Delk said he wasn't anticipating that Nathanial Richardson would be arrested. "But until I'm sure they're not looking at him being involved, I can't say much more," he said.

Delk previously told the AP that the couple is going through a divorce and that the 33-year-old Army veteran may have been "set up" by his wife.

FBI agents wearing hazardous material suits were seen going in and out of the Richardsons' house on Wednesday in nearby New Boston, about 150 miles northeast of Dallas near the Arkansas and Oklahoma borders. Authorities conducted a similar search on May 31.

The house is now under quarantine for "environmental or toxic agents," according to a posting at the residence. Multiple samples taken from the couples' home tested positive for ricin, according to the affidavit. Federal agents also found castor beans -- the key ingredient in ricin -- along with syringes and other items that could be used to extract the lethal poison, the affidavit says.

Bloomberg issued a statement Friday thanking local and federal law enforcement agencies "for their outstanding work in apprehending a suspect," saying they worked collaboratively from the outset "and will continue to do so as the investigation continues."

Shannon Richardson appears in movies and on TV under the name Shannon Guess. Her resume on the Internet movie database IMDb said she has had small television roles in "The Vampire Diaries" and "The Walking Dead." She had a minor role in the movie "The Blind Side" and appeared in an Avis commercial, according to the resume.

She was seen leaving a Texarkana hospital on Friday shortly before the court hearing, though it was unclear why she was there. A hospital spokeswoman didn't return a phone message seeking comment.

Delk said the Richardsons were expecting their first child in October. Shannon Richardson also has five children ranging in age from 4 to 19 from other relationships, four of whom had been living with the couple in the New Boston home, the attorney said.

Nathaniel Richardson works as a mechanic at the Red River Army Depot in Texarkana, Texas, a facility that repairs tanks, Humvees and other mobile military equipment. He and Shannon were married in October 2011.

According to court records, Shannon Richardson is in federal custody. The government is requesting that she be held without bond, and a detention hearing is scheduled for next Friday, the records show.

The FBI is investigating at least three cases over the past two months in which ricin was mailed to Obama and other public figures. Ricin has been sent to officials sporadically over the years, but experts say that there seems to be a recent uptick and that copycat attacks -- made possible by the relative ease of extracting the poison -- may be the reason.

If inhaled, ricin can cause respiratory failure, among other symptoms. If swallowed, it can shut down the liver and other organs, resulting in death. The amount of ricin that can fit on the head of a pin is said to be enough to kill an adult if properly prepared. No antidote is available, though researchers are trying to develop one.

A former Wyoming hospital CEO who disappeared before being tried on charges of defrauding his employers has been arrested in Thailand.

FBI spokesman Dave Joly (JAHL'-ee) tells the Powell Tribune (http://bit.ly/197Xpdq ) Paul Cardwell was arrested early Friday after fleeing in August. Joly says it could take up to a month to return Cardwell to face charges in Wyoming and Indiana.

Cardwell is accused of stealing about $848,000 from Powell Valley Healthcare in Wyoming in 2011 and about $846,000 from White County Memorial Hospital in Monticello, Ind., between 2003 and 2009. He had been CEO of both.

Prosecutors allege Cardwell would send funds to a bogus recruiting firm supposedly run by Michael Plake of West Lafayette, Ind., and that the two split the money.

Plake received a 30-month prison sentence in May.

___

Information from: Powell (Wyo.) Tribune, http://www.powelltribune.com

Key moments in a shooting rampage Friday that killed at least six people in Santa Monica, Calif., before a gunman was shot and killed by police in a college library. Based on reports from witnesses, police, and fire, college and hospital officials.

— At 11:52 a.m. PDT, firefighters respond to a blaze at a house about a mile from Santa Monica College. Police receive reports of a carjacking nearby at about the same time. Two people are eventually found dead in the burned house.

— The gunman travels to a busy intersection nearby and shoots at a public bus. A third person is killed in the area.

— Shots are heard around the campus of Santa Monica College around noon. The campus and two nearby schools are locked down. Witnesses see a man dressed in black wearing cargo pants and a ballistic vest shoot at a red SUV with a semi-automatic rifle. The driver is hit in the torso and the car accelerates across the street into a wall. The driver dies. Two passengers are injured and taken to a hospital.

— Witnesses say the suspect shoots again, and a pedestrian is later found dead on the sidewalk. The gunman exchanges gunfire with college and city police. He moves onto the 38-acre campus, making his way toward the library.

— The gunman shoots a woman outside the library, then goes inside. Police exchange gunfire with the gunman and wound him. He is carried to the sidewalk, where he dies.

— About 1:15 p.m., police interview a man dressed in all black with hands cuffed behind his back. They later call him a person of interest. His sweatshirt reads "Life's a Gamble."

— About 3:15 p.m., doctors say a female victim who was brought to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center has died. It isn't clear which shooting took her life.

The Army says it has suspended a two-star general from his duties in Japan for allegedly failing to report or properly investigate an allegation of sexual assault.

The suspended officer, Maj. Gen. Michael T. Harrison, is commanding general of U.S. Army forces in Japan.

The Army said Friday night that he was suspended by the Army chief of staff, Gen. Ray Odierno, and Army Secretary John McHugh. It provided no details about the alleged sexual assault case.

The Army says that until the investigation of Harrison's role is completed, Maj. Gen. James C. Boozer will take his place in Japan.

A senior U.S. intelligence official says that the secret program that tracked hundreds of millions of domestic phone records helped disrupt a 2009 terror plot to bomb New York City subways.

The official says the plot was thwarted because of the secret collection of phone records by the National Security Agency. The official would not provide other details.

The official was not authorized to discuss the plot publicly and requested anonymity.

Afghan-American Najibullah Zazi pleaded guilty to the 2009 plot, saying he had been recruited by al-Qaida in Pakistan.

Newspaper reports revealed this week that the NSA has been collecting the phone records of hundreds of millions of Americans each day for a database used to determine whether terror suspects have been in contact with people in the U.S.

Two math-notebook pages recently authenticated as belonging to Abraham Lincoln suggest the 16th president, who was known to downplay his formal education, may have spent more time in school than usually thought.

And the Illinois State University math professors behind the discovery say the work shows Lincoln was no slouch, either.

Math professors Nerida Ellerton and Ken Clements said Friday at the university in Normal that they'd recently confirmed that the two pages were part of a previously known math notebook from Lincoln's childhood. It was found in the archives of Houghton Library at Harvard University, where it remains.

The book, known as a cyphering book in Lincoln's day, is a sort math workbook in which Lincoln wrote math problems and their answers. It's the oldest known Lincoln manuscript.

Based on the difficulty of the problems involved and dates on some of the pages -- 1824 and, on the recently authenticated pages, 1826, when Lincoln was 17 -- Lincoln likely worked in the book intermittently over several calendar years while his family lived in Indiana, the married professors said. They think he could have started as early as the age of 10 and believe his work happened while he was in school.

"Most people say he went to school for anything between three months and nine months" over the course of his life, Clements said. "We think he went to school (up to) two years."

And very little of the work is wrong, he added.

"He made very few errors, and he always knew what he was trying to do," Clements added. "We've studied thousands of these cyphering books. You don't always get the feeling that `this guy knew what he was doing."'

The professors' find suggests Lincoln may have gone to school over as many as three to five winters, according to historian Daniel Stowell, director of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln project at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library in Springfield. The library owns one previously identified page of the book.

"They are arguing with some merit that a cyphering book would have been created in a school setting," Stowell said. "It does at least open the possibility that he may have had more formal schooling than originally thought. Not a whole lot more, but still more."

The pages -- attached as a single leaf -- include word problems that are the equivalent of roughly eighth-grade modern work, Clements said.

"If 100 dollars in one year gain 3 1/2 dollars interest, what sum will gain $38.50 cents in one year and a quarter?" one reads.

Any student doing such work in the 1820s would have been more advanced than most on the frontier in Indiana, Clements said.

"If you got to that stage, you'd sort of done well," he said.

Lincoln is known to have later studied trigonometry and geometry on his own.

The newly authenticated pages have been in the Harvard library's archives since 1954. They were known as Lincoln documents, but their origin wasn't known, the professors said. The two looked at the documents as they researched a book they've written on math books from the period.

A letter from former Lincoln law partner William Herndon from 1875 that accompanied the papers, describing them, made the authentication relatively straightforward, Clements said.

Lincoln's stepmother, Sarah Bush Lincoln, gave the cyphering book to Herndon after Lincoln's death, and Herndon then gave them to other people, Stowell said.

Charges have been dismissed against a Saudi man arrested at Detroit Metropolitan Airport after a pressure cooker was found in his bag.

Al Khawahir was arrested May 11 and charged with giving false statements to federal agents and possessing an altered passport. Authorities said he lied about why he was traveling with the pressure cooker.

The U.S. Attorney's Office tells the Detroit Free Press (http://on.freep.com/127AxI1 ) in a statement Friday that Hussain Al Khawahir "will go immediately into the custody of U.S. Customs and Border protection for removal" from the U.S.

His attorney, James Howarth, has said Al Khawahir didn't know pressure cookers were used to make bombs in the Boston Marathon attack and was bringing the appliance for his nephew.

The Associated Press left messages Friday evening for Howarth.

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Information from: Detroit Free Press, http://www.freep.com

A felon who was allegedly high while operating demolition equipment when a downtown building collapsed and killed six people will be charged with involuntary manslaughter, a top city official said Friday.

Sean Benschop, 42, faces six manslaughter counts along with six counts of risking a catastrophe, six counts of reckless endangerment and other charges, Deputy Mayor Everett Gillison told The Associated Press.

Authorities believe Benschop had been using an excavator Wednesday when what was left of the four-story building gave way and fell on top of a neighboring Salvation Army thrift store, killing two employees and four customers, and injuring 13 others.

A toxicology report showed "evidence that he was high" on marijuana, Gillison said. That finding, combined with witness statements and evidence from the scene, led to the decision Friday to raid his North Philadelphia home and later seek an arrest warrant, he said.

"The D.A. has approved it (his arrest), and my police officers are out looking for him as we speak," said Gillison, deputy mayor for public safety.

Benschop, who also goes by the name Kary Roberts, has been arrested at least 11 times since 1994 on charges ranging from drugs to theft to weapons possession, according to court records. He was twice sentenced to prison in the 1990s after being convicted on drug trafficking charges. Benschop's last arrest, for aggravated assault, came in January 2012, but the case was dismissed for lack of evidence.

Benschop did not return phone messages left at numbers listed in his name, though he told The Philadelphia Inquirer on Thursday that he couldn't comment because of the investigation.

The victims include a pair of 24-year-old artist friends shopping at the store and a newly engaged woman working her first day there.

Video shot of the scene days before the fatal collapse show bricks falling onto a sidewalk, which remained open to pedestrians, as a worker used heavy equipment to take out a front wall.

Some blame has been lobbed at demolition contractor Griffin Campbell, whose background includes arrests for drugs, assault and insurance fraud, along with two bankruptcy filings. He was being paid $10,000 for the job, according to the demolition permit.

Campbell violated several federal safety regulations, while building owner Richard Basciano should have picked a more qualified and competent contractor to do the work, said lawyer Robert Mongeluzzi, who represents injured store worker Nadine White in a lawsuit filed Friday against the pair.

"From what we can understand, given (Campbell's) checkered past, and what appears to be a total lack of experience and know-how, we believe that was a grossly negligent selection," said lawyer Robert Mongeluzzi, who won court permission Friday to examine the debris after city officials finish their investigation.

The collapse has brought swift and mounting fallout in a city where demolition contractors are lightly regulated. Officials have begun inspecting hundreds of demolition sites citywide, and a city councilman charged that dangerous, under-the-radar tear-downs are taking place throughout Philadelphia.

The city is also preparing to implement sweeping changes in its regulations of building demolition, Mayor Michael Nutter said Friday, adding that every active demolition site is being inspected for safety.

The mayor appeared forlorn at the afternoon news conference at City Hall, apologizing to the victims' families for the deaths and promising the city would do better.

"We lack the resources to have a police officer on every corner, or L&I (License and Inspections) at every construction site every hour of the day, (but) we can do much better," Nutter said. "We will not accept the status quo in the face of this tragedy."

Nutter's reform plan for construction sites that includes the random drug testing of heavy equipment operators.

"If that's a factor here, that certainly takes things in a very different direction," Nutter said hours before the charges were confirmed.

The mayor also pledged to adopt tougher background requirements for demolition contractors, including information about each worker's experience, and more frequent site inspections when demolitions are under way.

Several homicide prosecutors and police department crime scene investigators were on the scene this week when a steel beam from the site was removed.

Construction engineers have said adjacent buildings should be evacuated during critical phases of a demolition project. The other victims also include two immigrants from Africa, a 68-year-old man from Liberia described as a devoted husband and Salvation Army worker, and a 52-year-old woman from Sierra Leone who had nine children and loved to hunt for bargains.

The Salvation Army was concerned enough about the demolition that its attorneys reached out to a lawyer for building owner STB Investments Corp., a company linked to prominent businessman and developer Richard Basciano.

"There was communication between The Salvation Army and the attorney of the neighboring building's owner, pertaining to the demolition. The neighbor assured The Salvation Army that they would be taking proper precautions," Maj. Robert W. Dixon, director of operations of The Salvation Army of Greater Philadelphia, said in a statement Friday afternoon.

"These discussions were never finalized," he said.

Iwo Jima is a training site like no other. The rugged volcanic crag was one of the most iconic battlegrounds of World War II, and is so isolated and barren it has almost never been inhabited by anyone other than military troops. But from the perspective of U.S. Navy fighter pilots who regularly train on the island's one functioning airstrip, it is unique in another way.

If a plane finds itself in serious trouble and for some reason that lone airstrip on the island isn't viable, the only alternative is to eject and ditch in the Pacific. It's a problem that the U.S. Navy, which is now conducting training on the island to prepare pilots for deployment to the USS George Washington aircraft carrier, has been trying to fix for nearly 25 years.

But, so far, Japan has failed to find a more suitable site.

Briefing reporters on the tiny island Friday, Capt. Dennis Mikeska, the assistant chief of staff for operations, planning and operations for the U.S. Naval Forces, Japan, said Iwo Jima is the only place in the world where the Navy conducts crucial carrier landing practice without an emergency "divert" — an alternate location where a plane can go in an emergency.

He said the Navy hasn't lost a plane on Iwo Jima yet, but added, "That's not to say there haven't been any close calls."

Mikeska was quick to note that although the site is not so critically dangerous as to be unusable, it does not meet Navy safety standards and must be replaced as soon as possible.

Japan is responsible for providing locations for all U.S. bases within Japanese territory that both countries agree are necessary. The Navy's plea has run up against the classic dilemma that faces all U.S. forces in Japan. Though the Japanese government is one of Washington's staunchest and most reliable allies, it is virtually impossible to find a city, town or village that will quietly accept having U.S. troops based near it.

The not-in-my-backyard problem is most intense on the island of Okinawa, where about half of the 50,000 U.S. troops in Japan are based. Plans to simply deploy the Marine Corps' new transport aircraft, the MV-22 Osprey, have sent tens of thousands of Okinawans to the streets in protest.

This week, the mere suggestion by the mayor of Japan's second-largest city that the U.S. should use a small suburban airfield there was met with an immediate outcry, and has become a national debate.

For the Japanese leadership — who are rarely willing to risk such controversy — Iwo Jima is the perfect place to put the noisy U.S. fighters.

Now officially called Ioto in Japan, the island is inhabited full time only by a few hundred Japanese troops. It is about 750 miles (1,200 kilometers) south of Naval Air Facility Atsugi, the base on Japan's main island where the George Washington aircraft carrier's air wing — the units that train on Iwo Jima — is stationed when not at sea.

Local anger over the noise and dangers of a crash are what drove the wing to Iwo Jima to begin with.

With little other choice, the Navy has been using the Iwo Jima facility for carrier landing practice since 1989, when the two governments agreed to move such operations there "on an interim basis" in response to the noise complaints, and costly lawsuits, from Atsugi residents.

Carrier-based fighter pilots need to train intensely and are required to take qualification tests before deploying to sea. The strip on Iwo Jima has a mock-up of an aircraft carrier's deck. Veteran pilots stand nearby as the fighters approach, both to guide them in and to grade each landing.

Iwo Jima has its advantages. Because there is no local population to worry about, fighters can fly at low altitudes and at all hours of the night. But according to the Navy, the nearest place a pilot can "divert," or make an emergency landing, is 600 miles (960 kilometers) away, or about six times farther than the 100 miles (160 kilometers) that is considered safe.

"We need a special waiver every time we train out there," said Jon Nylander, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy in Japan. "Moving it is a high priority for us."

Tokyo has acknowledged Iwo Jima is only a temporary solution.

Japan has suggested the Iwo Jima flight training be conducted on Mageshima, an island in Japan's southwest where Tokyo plans to build a military base to bolster its southern defenses and its preparedness for natural disasters. Mageshima was officially named a candidate in 2004 in a meeting between the U.S. and Japanese foreign and defense ministers.

Mageshima would provide access to alternative landing sites, and would also be closer to the home base of the air wing when it moves to Iwakuni, about 250 miles (400 kilometers) away. That move was scheduled for 2014, but has also stalled.

No progress has been announced on moving to that island, however.

Mikeska said Mageshima is still officially a candidate site, but no firm plans have been agreed upon.

A dolphin has been rescued from a sandbar off the southern shore of Long Island.

The Risso's dolphin is a 9-foot, 600-pound female. Staff from the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation made the rescue Thursday near Oak Beach with help from the Coast Guard.

Foundation rescue program director Kimberly Durham says the dolphin will be closely monitored. It is being treated for dehydration and gastric bleeding.

It's the second Risso's dolphin recovered by the program in two weeks.

An adult female was found in the Hudson River 26 miles north of Manhattan. It later died of what officials believe is starvation from plastic bags blocking her stomach.